Goines On: Memorial Day

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Goines’ eyes blinked in consternation – he thought he might have emailed a friend that, no, he had not “celebrated” Memorial Day. (His friend had inquired whether he was having beer and burgers that day.)
    Not “celebrated” Memorial Day? Had he really said that? People didn’t celebrate Memorial Day, did they? Didn’t they rather sadly remember military veterans and other lost people, places, and things? 
    Goines hadn’t even been aware that Monday was Memorial Day until he tried to call the library and was told they were closed for the holiday.
    Holidays. Goines felt uneasy about holidays. He suspected they were declared to provide postal employees a day off. And those who considered them holy should reconsider: if any day was holy, then they all were. And now he realized that this logic applied to Memorial Day remembrances – every day was for remembering loss.
    And more and more now, every day was sad for Goines. He had for some time been doing more remembering than looking forward. There was way more past than future in Goines’ life.
    The absence of friends was sad, whether they were literally dead or simply no longer in his life. And sadness attached to friends still in his life, because they shared common losses.
    It was sad for Goines to remember the sight of his father 60 years back sitting tired and unsmiling on their front porch. It might have been Goines’ first summer back from college. His father was in his late fifties, and Goines felt sure he had taken a photo of him that day, with the Zeiss camera he had bought for college. Or maybe the photo of his father was only mental.
    Only? Weren’t most memories photos? Goines’ thoughts wandered off into a muddle. 
    Goines’ sense of impending death seemed some days to have taken him over. Later he said to Mrs. Goines, “I don’t just feel as though I’m getting old – I feel as though I am old – very, very old.”
    “You’re not old yet. Maybe in ten more years.” 
    He thanked his wife for reminding him to concentrate on being alive. Death was waiting, but maybe it wasn’t imminent.

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